The Old Lodge, Staindrop, near Barnard Castle

The Old Lodge is a great venue for a holiday in the countryside with friends or family. It is a few miles from the village of Staindrop and reached by a single track road. Being well away from street lights means it is possible get excellent views of the stars on a clear night. The property has four bedrooms on three floors. Most of the rooms are extremely large and well proportioned. The only ‘small’ room is on the top floor and only seems small in comparison to other rooms in the house. In fact it is probably as big as a double room in an average family home.

We found the layout ideal. Everyone can be together while meals are being cooked, but there is enough room for people to find a quite space. On the ground floor there is a large living room with kitchen, eating and sitting areas. It has a huge open grate fire and logs are supplied. The downstairs bedroom and en-suite are a good size. On the first floor there is a huge bedroom and family bathroom with roll-top bath. On the top floor another huge bedroom, a smaller bedroom and shower room. Outside there are outbuildings, a games room, a pleasant sitting area and a stream running through the garden. The Old Lodge is built up on a mound, so the grounds are not very even, which could present problems for people who are unsteady on their feet.

The furnishings and equipment add a homely feel. The crockery, pans, sheets and floor coverings are all high quality. As mentioned in a previous post, there are also nice touches like an ipod docking station and printer.

An added bonus is that the property is over 600 years old, so has lots of character, such as thick walls, leaded windows and some stone floors. It is part of the Raby Castle Estate and has previously served as a look-out tower and hunting lodge. It was restored in 1991 by the 11th Lord Barnard. Rentals can be arranged through various agencies, we used Cottages4You.

A weekend in the countryside

The Old Lodge

The Bowes Museum

High Force

During the summer a friend had the excellent idea of a group of us hiring somewhere in the countryside for a few days and now here we (seven of us) are. We are staying at The Old Lodge in Staindrop, which is near Barnard Castle in County Durham. The Old Lodge dates from the 14th Century and feels like a rather grand home, not a holiday let. Careful attention has been paid to every detail. Not only do we have wireless Internet access, but nice little touches like a wireless printer and Bose docking station for our ipods. I will do a separate post, soon about our wonderful base for the weekend.

We arrived on Friday and toasted the beginning of our long weekend with some fizz. We ate an excellent fish pie and washed it down with white wine, followed by more wine and conversation. We teased the person who has organised the weekend for suggesting we bring two bottles of wine each and we will continue to do so. It is fair to say that we went over our suggested four glass ration on Friday, but we didn't stay up that late or drink that much, even so I felt decidedly 'fragile' this morning. The breakfast buffet task, which was allocated to me was completed, but took great effort.

Today we split into two groups, the hikers and strollers/ gallery goers. I opted to stroll. We did a short walk to High Force, which is a waterfall on land owned by the Raby Castle estate. We had to pay to park and walk on the trail and were surprised that they didn't extract money for us to have a pee as well. Times must be hard for the aristocracy. We were amused by the many signs on the trail with detailed instructions about what we could and could not do. Basically they were saying if you kill or injure yourself, its your fault.

Later we went to the Bowes Museum (more detail about this in a later post). It is a palatial setting with many fine art works. We loved the clockwork silver swan which moved around so smoothly it looked as though it was computer generated.

We then went into Barnard Castle, an archetypal English market town. We had a lovely traditional lunch at a cafe.

After eating we decided to call into a gallery I had spotted on our way to the Cafe called Mouncey Fine Art. We were delighted with the impressive range range of ceramics and paintings. I purchased a humorous dog by Marie Prett and was tempted to buy a piece by Christine Cummings (another dog). We came back to the Lodge and met up with the hikers. We shared stories of our day and decided on a name for my ceramic dog. He will be called Barnard.

We have had an enjoyable evening in. Delicious Jambalaya, great choice of music, stimulating conversation and good fun.